“How did you know?”
Maxime could not look him in the face; but his voice was as steady as
ever when he replied, in a tone of bitterest sarcasm,--
“I guess it. Did I not tell you I knew Miss Brandon? She has only one
card in her hand; but that is enough; it always makes a trick.”
To have been deceived, and even to have been rendered ridiculous, is one
of those misfortunes which we confess to ourselves, however painful
the process may be; but to hear another person laugh at us after such a
thing has happened is more than we can readily bear. Daniel, therefore,
did not conceal his impatience, and said rather dryly,--
“If I have been the dupe of Miss Brandon, my dear Maxime, you see, at
last, that I am so no longer.”
“Ah, ah!”
“No, not in the least. And that, thanks to her; for she herself has
destroyed my illusions.”
“Pshaw!”
“Unconsciously, of course, having ran away from her like a fool, I was
wandering about in the streets near her house, when I saw her come out
in her _coupe_.”
“Oh, come!”
“I saw her as distinctly as I see you. It was four o’clock in the
morning, mind!”
“Is it possible? And what did you do?”
“I followed her.”
M. de Brevan nearly let the brush fall, with which he was polishing his
finger-nails; but he mastered his confusion so promptly, that Daniel did
not perceive it.
“Ah! you followed her,” he said in a voice which all his efforts could
not steady entirely. “Then, of course, you know where she went.”
“Alas, no! She drove so fast, that, quick as I am, I could not follow
her, and lost sight of her.”
Certainly M. de Brevan was breathing more freely, and said in an easy
tone,--
“That is provoking, and you have lost a fine opportunity. I am, however,
by no means astonished that you are at last enlightened.”
“Oh! I am so; you may believe me. And yet”--
“Well, yet?”
Daniel hesitated, for fear of seeing another sardonic smile appear on
Maxime’s lips. Still making an effort, he replied,--
“Well, I am asking myself whether all that Miss Brandon states about her
childhood, her family, and her fortune, might not, after all, be true.”
Maxime looked like a sensible man who is forced to listen to the absurd
nonsense of an insane person.
“You think I am absurd,” said Daniel. “Perhaps I am; but, then, do me
the favor to explain to me how Miss Brandon, anxious as she must be to
conceal her past, could herself point out to me the means to ascertain
every thing about her, and even to learn the precise amount of her
income? America is not so far off!”
M. de Brevan’s face no longer expressed astonishment; he looked
absolutely bewildered.
“What!” he cried out, “could you seriously think of undertaking a trip
to America?”
“Why not?”
“To be sure, my dear friend, you are, in all sincerity, too naive for
our age. What! have you not yet been able to divine Miss Brandon’s
plan? And yet it is patent enough. When she saw you, and had taken your
measure, she said to herself, ‘Here is an excellent young man who is in
my way, excessively in my way; he must go and breathe a better air a few
thousand miles off.’ And thereupon she suggested to you that pleasant
trip to America.”
After what Daniel had learned about Miss Brandon’s character, this
explanation sounded by no means improbable. Nevertheless, he was not
quite satisfied. He objected to it thus:--
“Whether I go or stay, the wedding will still take place. Consequently,
she has no interest in my being abroad. Believe me, Maxime, there is
something else underneath. Outside of this marriage, Miss Brandon must
be pursuing some other plan.”
“What plan?”
“Ah! That is what I cannot find out, to save my life. But you may be
sure that I am not mistaken. I want no better evidence of it than the
fact that she wrote to me this morning.”